Zebra started their career by playing covers of Led Zeppelin, The Moody Blues and Rush
songs; it was their early fans' reaction to their Led Zeppelin
renditions that helped convince the band to bring their act to New York.
They had introduced their original material into their cover sets years
before they were signed to Atlantic Records, including "The La La Song", "Free" and "Bears" (originally entitled "The Bears are Hibernating").

Zebra had been noticed by local colleges and even had some of their
early original performances recorded by Long Island FM radio station WBAB, culminating in the inclusion of one of their songs on a release of "WBAB Homegrown Album", which commemorated some of the station's best local acts and performances culled from their on-air "Homegrown Hour" program.

The band continued to tour throughout the 1980s but put a temporary
hold in the early 1990s after being dropped by Atlantic Records. Randy
Jackson formed his solo band, Randy Jackson's China Rain, and
released its only album in the year 1993. Zebra finally reunited in 1997
and released Zebra IV in 2003, their first album of all-new material
since 1986. A DVD of recent live performances, mostly from a show at the
House of Blues in New Orleans, was released in the summer of 2007.

On July 10, 2010, during their 35th-anniversary performance at New
Orleans' Mahalia Jackson Theater, Zebra was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.